If any of you are readers of The Hill Times you will know that every year they do a feature on the best book of the year. This year, we were thrilled and honoured to see that of the 100 books listed, 24 of them were University of Toronto Press titles! It is wonderful to be listed so often and to be in the company of the other notable presses that can be found on the list.
100 books (or even 24!) can be daunting, so we thought we would pick out a few of our listed titles and give you some insight into them.
Redesigning Work: A Blueprint for Canada’s Future Well-Being and Prosperity
By Graham Lowe and Frank Graves
Canada’s future prosperity is of utmost concern to citizens, industry leaders and policy makers. Using original public opinion research from EKOS, Redesigning Work argues that improving people’s jobs and workplaces can unlock the potential to strengthen Canada’s economy and improve the well-being of Canadians.
Graham Lowe and Frank Graves are two of Canada’s leading experts on work and public opinion. In Redesigning Work the authors provide a blueprint for the future of work in Canada by identifying practical ways to make work more motivating, rewarding and productive. The authors provide fuel for employers, workers, policy makers, HR professionals, and NGOs to combat the negative trends many Canadians associate with their future economic prospects. The book paints an optimistic picture of the future of work by addressing job stress, work-life balance, skill use and engagement.
Adapting in the Dust: Lessons Learned from Canada’s War in Afghanistan
By Stephen M. Saideman
Canada’s six-year military mission in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province was one of the most intense and challenging moments in Canadian foreign affairs since the Korean War. A complex war fought in an inhospitable environment, the Afghanistan mission tested the mettle not just of Canada’s soldiers but also of its politicians, public servants, and policy makers. In Adapting in the Dust, Stephen M. Saideman considers how well the Canadian government, media, and public managed the challenge.
Building on interviews with military officers, civilian officials, and politicians, Saideman shows how key actors in Canada’s political system, including the prime minister, the political parties, and parliament, responded to the demands of a costly and controversial mission. Some adapted well; others adapted poorly or – worse yet – in ways that protected careers but harmed the mission itself.
Adapting in the Dust is a vital evaluation of how well Canada’s institutions, parties, and policy makers responded to the need to oversee and sustain a military intervention overseas, and an important guide to what will have to change in order to do better next time.
Arab Dawn: Arab Youth and the Demographic Dividend they will Bring
By Bessma Momani
In the West, news about the Middle East is dominated by an endless stream of reports and commentary about civil war, sectarian violence, religious extremism, and economic stagnation. But do they tell the full story? For instance, who knew that university enrolment in the war-torn Palestinian territories exceeds that of Hong Kong, or that more than a third of Lebanese entrepreneurs are women?
Change is on its way in the Middle East, argues Bessma Momani, and its cause is demographic. Today, one in five Arabs is between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four. Young, optimistic, and increasingly cosmopolitan, their generation will shape the region’s future. Drawing on interviews, surveys, and other research conducted with young people in fifteen countries across the Arab world, Momani describes the passion for entrepreneurship, reform, and equality among Arab youth. With insightful political analysis based on the latest statistics and first-hand accounts, Arab Dawn is an invigorating study of the Arab world and the transformative power of youth.
Backrooms and Beyond: Partisan Advisers and the Politics of Policy Work in Canada
By Jonathan Craft
Though they serve in many roles and under many titles, no one doubts that political staffs now wield substantial influence in the making of government policy. Backrooms and Beyond draws on interviews with ministers, senior public servants, and political advisers to offer the first detailed Canadian treatment of how that influence is gained and exercised in the policy making process.
A comparative analysis of case studies from three Canadian jurisdictions, including the federal Prime Minister’s Office, two premier’s offices, and ministers’ offices, the book presents a detailed account of partisan advisers’ involvement in policy work and a new theoretical framework for understanding this work and its impact. As Jonathan Craft shows, partisan advisers often engage in policy work with public servants, outside stakeholders, and often in types of policy work that public servants cannot.
Backrooms and Beyond is a rich and rigorous look at an important aspect of contemporary Canadian politics, essential reading for scholars and practitioners, journalists, students of the Westminster system from around the world, and those wanting to understand just how policy is made today.
Our other titles that made the list are shown below. Please click on each one to view a full description.
- Broadcasting Policy in Canada, Second Edition by Robert Armstrong
- Canadian Parties in Transition, Fourth Edition edited by Alain-G. Gagnon and A. Brian Tanguay
- Canadian Politics, Sixth Edition edited by James Bickerton and Alain-G. Gagnon
- Cases of Conflict: Transboundary Disputes and the Development of International Environmental Law by Allen L. Springer
- Catalytic Governance: Leading Change in the Information Age by Patricia Meredith, Steven A. Rosell, and Ged R. Davis
- Covering Canadian Crime: What Journalists should Know and the Public should Question edited by Chris Richardson and Romayne Smith Fullerton
- First World Petro-Politics: The Political Ecology and Governance of Alberta edited by Laurie E. Adkin
- Freedom from Fear, Freedom from Want: An Introduction to Human Security by Robert J. Hanlon and Kenneth Christie
- Growing Urban Economies: Innovation, Creativity, and Governance in Canadian City-Regions edited by David A. Wolfe and Meric S. Gertler
- Human Rights: Current Issues and Controversies edited by Gordon DiGiacomo
- Journalism in Crisis: Bridging Theory and Practice for Democratic Media Strategies in Canada edited by Mike Gasher, Colette Brin, Christine Crowther, Gretchen King, Errol Salamon, and Simon Thibault
- Lessons of the Holocaust by Michael R. Marrus
- Manufacturing Phobias: The Political Production of Fear in Theory and Practice edited by Hisham Ramadan and Jeff Shantz
- The Canadian Environment in Political Context by Andrea Olive
- The Canadian Regime: An Introduction to Parliamentary Government in Canada, Sixth Edition by Patrick Malcolmson, Richard Myers, Gerald Baier, and Thomas M.J. Bateman
- The Judicial Role in a Diverse Federation: Lessons from the Supreme Court of Canada by Robert Schertzer
- The Marketing Revolution in Politics: What Recent U.S. Presidential Campaigns can teach us about Effective Marketing by Bruce I. Newman
- Politics of Energy Dependency: Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania Between Domestic Oligarchs and Russian Pressure by Margarita M. Balmaceda
- The World Won’t Wait: Why Canada Needs to Rethink its International Policies edited by Roland Paris and Taylor Owen
- Total Wars and the Making of Modern Ukraine, 1914-1954 by George O. Liber
